The Hit
by LetThereBeRaito
Summary: Allen Walker didn't have the best life growing up, and he has the scars to prove it; mental and physical. Despite this, he continues with his life like any other 19 year old. However, one thing sets him apart; the 'ghosts' which only he can see. One day, Allen meets the enigmatic Lavi, and his life changes for the better. Although, now it looks like he's being followed. But by who?
1. Prologue

Hi there, guys. It has literally been years since I've posted anything. Hopefully you remember me! I'm not sure if the old Death Note fics are still floating around here somewhere. I know I had a couple of different accounts…they may even still be on this one! (To be honest, I haven't checked, I just went straight to upload…eager!) Anyway, it's time for some fresh writing. It's been so long, so I feel quite rusty at the old writing game. But, despite that, I hope you enjoy! It's gonna be a long one...

Prologue.

He stared at the clock hung on the otherwise bare walls, whilst digging the build-up of grime from his nails using the sharp tip of one of his daggers. It was only one of the spares he kept scattered throughout his office; he couldn't place his favourite for this particular job right now, and, to be perfectly honest, he couldn't muster the will to go searching for it. It was five minutes 'til he called it quits for the day.

Each stroke of the clock checked off the extra seconds he'd spent doing absolutely nothing today. He hadn't had a call since yesterday; extremely unusual for a man so accomplished as he in his field.

"Right," he said, to no one in particular. Except, perhaps, to the empty mug on his desk, as he seemed to be making eye contact with it, whilst he uttered the sentence.

He swung his legs from off of the table, heavy boots thudding as they made contact with the thin carpeting. Clouds of dust rose, which he batted away with an irritated flick of the wrist. He stood, grabbing his black jacket from the coat peg the last person who had rented this office had left behind. Reaching out, he flicked the light off, staring towards the window. The room was momentarily illuminated by the red taillights of the passing cars. They strobed through the blinds, and bathed his pale face in blood coloured light, before all too suddenly winking out.

The emptiness of the room seemed all too familiar.

It was only when he reached to unlock the door that he realised he'd left the files from the Boothman job in the small side-room masquerading as a kitchenette. He'd been pouring over them, whilst making cup noodles, only for his interest in the report to instantly evaporate once the suggested two minute waiting time had been reached.

He grumbled to himself; damning the need of an extra few steps walk. He knew the exact spot he'd left the handful of papers, so grabbed at them, ham fisted, and shoved them roughly into his satchel, without the need to flick on the light switch. He left the kitchen without making a sound.

"Good evening, sir."

His heart, as well as his breath, stilled; slowed consciously by his own will.

"How did you get into my office?" He kept his voice low, as if it would aid him in attaining a higher level of invisibility in the poor lighting.

"My, my…." The voice of the intruder crept out like the first chill of winter, entwining itself around its interlocutor's neck. "I see I've come to the right man."

The grip of 'the right man' loosened, as he sensed an oncoming job offer was the reason for this abrupt visit. Slowly, he released the portly figured who he had just immobilised by pinning his arms tight against his back. Nobody had ever successfully snuck up on him. But this one had been awfully close.

The thrum of traffic sounded, red, and now white, lights passing through the window, cascading down the only two figures in the building. Two small, round pieces of glass flashed, and a wide, so wide it was almost monstrous, grotesque, grin sat underneath, to form an image that was gone in an instant, but impressionable enough to leave a portrait engraved in his mind.

He suddenly got the feeling that whatever this man were about to propose to him, he would have to be inclined to agree.

"Firstly, I would like to congratulate you on your reputation so far exceeding you, that it reached my delicate little ears, and piqued my interest."

The man with the reputation stood stock still, arms folded firmly against chest.

"And secondly, I have a little, tiny problem that I would like entirely obliterated, if you so will. Have you ever heard the name, 'Allen Walker'?"


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Allen Walker?"

The young man smiled in response, and stood. He traversed his way across the stark waiting room, and into the office of the smartly dressed professional, who had just called his name. She was sitting in the chair facing away from the window, and offered him his usual seat just opposite. There was no desk in between; it created a more casual atmosphere. 'We're all friends here,' it said.

He flopped down into the plastic-moulded seat, and dropped his bag just in front of him, before kicking it surreptitiously beneath his chair, suddenly aware that he seemed to be making the otherwise neat room sloppy. As he waited for her to begin, his gaze wondered over to the window behind her, which framed a perfectly aligned composition of his university campus. The day was crisp, clear, indicating the onset of autumn, which in turn inferred the start of a new academic year.

"Allen?"

"Yes?"

His name snapped his attention back into focus.

"I notice you're not wearing your glove today." Her voice was gentle, coaxing, as was the smile on her face.

Allen looked down, his alabaster hair falling into his line of vision. His hand was curled up inside the sleeve of his hoodie, gripping hold of the material in an attempt to seal the opening. The tips of two of his fingers were peeking out, belying his attempt at concealing it.

"I forgot, today. I overslept, and was in a hurry."

His hand slinked further up into his sleeve, the other laying over it to block off any access to prying eyes.

The doctor continued to smile, her gaze unwavering. He knew what she was doing; trying to draw the story out of him. The full one, at least. He'd given her the condensed version during their second meeting last week; 'It got burnt when I was twelve.'

"Allen, if I might ask, and you know you are perfectly welcome to tell me if you would rather not answer, did you get that burn at the same time as your scar?"

Allen caught himself before retorting, "which one?" He lifted his right hand, and gently fingered the puckered, red skin running down the left side of his face, which marred his otherwise white, smooth skin.

"Um, yeah. Pretty much."

The woman nodded, smile still fixed, and instead of verbally replying, scribbled into the pad on her lap whatever it was that she had to say in response.

"And you started seeing these apparitions about the same age, wasn't it?"

The 19 year old boy with the hair of a much older man chewed his lip. It was his tick, whenever he got nervous. He knew what she was thinking. And of course she would think that. Any sane person would. The ghosts, monsters, were a manifestation of his trauma. He would think that, too, if they didn't look so goddamn real.

"Yes," he sighed.

She nodded, encouragingly, and fervently scribbled more notes.

"Now, last week you told me that you've lived on your own since a young age. You must be very self-sufficient."

Allen mulled the proposition over in his mind. His house wasn't in a terrible state. He always fed himself. Had clean clothes, generally.

"I guess you could say that." He said, shrugging, before pulling his mouth into a sort of half smile, in case he was coming across as surly and uncooperative. "I've had seven years of practice," he laughed, to show that it was no big deal. That it wasn't the real reason why he was here.

The doctor raised an eyebrow in a momentary lapse of objectivity. She quickly regained her composure.

"So, twelve was a hard time for you, then, would you say?"

Again, Allen shrugged. "I guess. I never really thought about it before. This stuff just happened to me, when I was a kid. I never really considered it like that. When each thing happened, it eventually passed, and then I just got on with life."

"But there was one thing you couldn't get past?"

"The ghosts, you mean?" His voice came out much smaller than he had intended. His light grey eyes were wide. He suddenly felt like he really didn't want to discuss this. These weren't metaphorical ghosts. They were solid. They lived. Or lived as much as a ghost can.

The doctor nodded, her eyes kind.

Allen shifted forward in seat, resting his elbows on his knees, left hand tucked safely into his sleeve.

"I know it seems like a coincidence, with the timing and everything, but these ghosts don't seem like visions. They're there. Everywhere. They look like physical, solid beings. They're not just some fuzzy, blurred shadow like you see in these caught-on-camera paranormal programs. I can see their faces. They're all different. And they don't look like people. They're horrible. They…" Allen cut himself short, his throat tight. He hadn't intended to carry on like that. His mouth hung open, as if his brain hadn't let it know that it no longer needed to form words.

The doctor nodded, face impassive, except for the permanent, reassuring smile. Allen's shoulders drooped. At least she wasn't looking at him as if he were clinically insane.

The only thing she said after that was that time was up for today.

He didn't get the chance to say that he also thought he was now being followed. Which, he decided in the end, he didn't really want to tell her anyway. She'd only think it was a manifestation of his childhood trauma.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The lecture hall was packed. Allen had had to run across the campus at full pelt, to make it so that he was only ten minutes late. Towards the end of the year, his classes would probably dwindle in numbers, but it was only the third week of term, and nobody had lost the will to turn up, yet.

He cursed under his breath, as he slid into one of only two free seats at the back of the amphitheatre, where it was impossible to hear the lecturer if they strayed even slightly away from the microphone.

He retrieved his notebook from his backpack, and slipped it onto the narrow table in front. He was rustling around his bag for a pen, which he soon discovered was quite difficult to do when you're in a hurry to make notes, as well as doing it one-handed, in attempt to keep his scarred appendage hidden from the other students around him.

"Pen?" a low voice enquired

He looked beside him to the previously unoccupied seat. A pale, long fingered hand was proffering him a cheap biro. Allen lost his voice for reasons beyond him. The biro wiggled back and forth in his face, as if parading itself to him.

"You looking for a pen?" the voice prompted.

Both voice, hand, and, presumably, pen belonged to a slender, pale skinned man with hair so red, the contrast made his skin appear almost luminescent. He wore a wide head band tied around his forehead to push back his thick shock of hair, so that his green eye was able to see out into the world. Allen's hand was still routing around aimlessly in his backpack, seemingly having forgotten what its original purpose was in there.

"It's the eye-patch, isn't it?" The red-headed man said, pointing redundantly at it.

"uhhhmmmm….uhhhh eye-patch?" Allen internally cursed himself. He felt awkward, which apparently resulted in him insulting this stranger's intelligence.

The man's lips cocked into a smile, his eyebrow raised. "Hey, calm down. I was kidding." His voice was sprinkled with an airy laugh.

"Oh, haha…got me for a moment there." Allen eased up, sliding his hand out from his bag, although, still keeping it below the table.

"So, uh…do you want the pen?" the red hired man had kept it aloft throughout the conversation. Allen's failure to notice resulted in another small stab of embarrassment. His eyes had been so fixed on the pretty, pale face of the stranger in front of him, the real purpose of the conversation had slipped out of his awareness. He'd just never seen someone so striking.

He grabbed it, nonchalant in manner. "Thanks."

"No problem. Just don't bite it. I hate getting pens back with chewed ends." The young man was still smiling, indicating that he was messing around with his new companion.

"Got it. Hey, I don't remember you from last year. Are you new?" Allen relaxed sunk back, not wishing to look so eager for conversation by sitting on the edge of his seat.

The man shrugged, non-committal. "There's a lotta students here. You can't notice everyone."

Allen somehow doubted that he would have missed someone like him. His colouring alone seemed as though it had its own aura in the otherwise colourless theatre. Allen fixed his gaze forward on the scaled down figure of the lecturer. Whatever he was saying was beyond him. His concentration had evaporated the moment he'd struck up conversation with the exotic looking man sitting next to him. Every so often, he felt his gaze wonder, and fix on his profile. What was worse was that he didn't appear to have any control over it. One minute, he was peering at the slides at the front of the stage, the next he was staring at the guy next to him, without any transition between.

Allen, with his head of pure white hair, sat there, his lack of hue feeling as though it were exacerbated by the red head being in its vicinity.

"Hey, look." He felt an elbow dig into his side. "Down there."

Allen's grey eyes followed the direction the long, white fingers were pointing in.

"Woo! Some pretty hot girls in here!" His voice was an ironically loud whisper.

Ok, so that cleared that up. This guy clearly wasn't of the same persuasion.

The lecture finished with Allen having absolutely no idea what he was supposed to have learnt. All he did know was that he had a five-hundred word paper to write by tomorrow. He grabbed his bag, making sure to keep his hand tucked in as he did so, and returned the pen to his new friend with a nod of thanks.

"Hey, are you going?"

Allen halted. "Uhh, yeah. That was my last lecture today."

The red head unfurled himself from his seat. He was at least half a foot taller than Allen, his figure long and lean. "Yeah, uh, I know this might sound weird, but, maybe we could do that paper together?"

Allen's instant reaction was to frown, which he regretted instantaneously.

"Oh, if it's a problem, I totally get it. We've only just met. It's just, this is the first time I've taken this module, and I don't really know what I'm doing yet. Would be nice to have a little help." The green eyed man smiled, the white of his teeth peeking through as his lips parted. He really was very persuasive.

"Yeah, sure! Sure. It's no problem. Sorry, you just caught me a little off guard." Allen absently scratched at the back of his head, biting his lip. The realisation that his right hand was not the one raised cut through him so sharp that he brought the left down as fast as if he'd been shocked.

One green eye peered curiously where the scarred hand was tucked away inside the shorter man's pocket.

"Hey, we've all got our defects. Embrace them," he said, gesturing to his patch. He turned to leave, the amphitheatre now empty except for a few figures milling around the stage end of the hall. He stopped, and turned to look over his shoulder. "Oh, I wrote my number down, it's in your hand. Call me later, then we'll hang out and write this paper, k?"

Allen frowned bewildered. He felt in his right pocket, which was empty. Drawing his ruined, red hand out from his jacket, he unfurled his fingers. Sitting there was a crumpled piece of paper with a number and a name scrawled across it.

"Lavi," he said, softly to himself. Just to see how it felt. "Huh," he smiled. Allen left, his step somewhat lighter. He hadn't even noticed the man standing down the front, who had been staring out with his back to the stage, eyes on the chairs in front of him. He didn't move until he was satisfied that the room was empty.


End file.
